


Fateful Nights

by Keibey



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 18:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7064911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keibey/pseuds/Keibey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nights of death, loss, and coping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fateful Nights

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from my LJ; spoilers abound!

“Drive more slowly, dear, it’s not safe.” Her mother was fretting, as always, and her father only laughed heartily.  
  
“Don’t worry so much,” he said blithely, “look at the bridge! No one’s on it.”  
  
Minako sat up as straight as she could in her seat, straining to peer over the side door. There really wasn’t anyone on the road. The streetlights sped past them, looking a bit sickly with their yellow light. The sky was full of cloud, but the moon was still full and bright.   
  
The hand holding hers twitched, and she turned to look at her brother. He seemed to be sleeping, head lolling until it came to rest against the side door. She smiled as she watched the quiet breaths stir the wispy strands of midnight blue hair around with each rise and fall of his shoulders.   
  
He was always so quiet and tired. It’s a good thing he’ll always have her to balance him out.   
  
“We should have gone another day; it’s almost midnight now.”   
  
“Tomorrow’s Sunday, they’ll be fine. Right, Minako?” Her father met her eyes in the rear-view mirror, and she nodded dutifully.   
  
“Yup,” she cheerfully chipped, pushing back the drowsy feeling that was threatening to creep up on her. Whenever her brother’s asleep, it made her sleepy too. Minako gave her mother a sunny smile when their gazes met, and she felt accomplished when her mother smiled back.   
  
“Is Minato–”  
  
The lights outside the car suddenly took on a green hue, the moon looking much yellower than before, and the vehicle had stopped moving. Minako didn’t give that much attention, though; her parents were suddenly gone, something black and unfamiliar taking their place in the front seats.   
  
“M–”  
  
She never got to finish the word before there was a loud crash right above them, the car lurching backwards like a skittish horse. It was followed by a horrible rattling noise outside. Her brother was awake now beside her, his eyes asking the question he didn’t voice. They exchanged a glance before they both started unbuckling their seatbelts.   
  
Minato had always been better with that task, and when he was free he shuffled over to help with hers. It was hard to see, with the deep shadows in the car, and the buckle refused to budge. Her brother made a quiet frustrated noise, and despite everything, Minako wanted to laugh. It sounded so much like a dog’s sneeze–  
  
In the next moment everything was at the wrong angle, and the seatbelt she was trying to undo was biting into her shoulder and her stomach. There was a ringing in her ears, she smelled something burning, and it was a bit hard to breathe.   
  
Her brother, where was her brother?  
  
“Minato?” she called as she fumbled with the buckle again, and this time it came apart with a click. She dropped onto the side door, yelping at the jarring impact. Why was that way “down” now? Why was that rattling noise back again, outside?  
  
She shook her head to clear her thoughts. That wasn’t important, though; the warm form under her was. Minako pulled herself up on her hands and looked into her brother’s face. He was too pale, and his breathing sounded raspy. When she tapped his still face, she got no response.   
  
Something was wrong with her brother, and there was nothing she could do.   
  
Somebody, she had to find somebody to help him.   
  
Minako looked up and saw the green tinted sky through a frame of broken glass and twisted the metal. Without thinking she reached up and pulled the large pieces of glass out, throwing it all as far away as she could through the opening, and then grasped the ragged edges. Minato was the one who was good at horizontal bars, but she put that thought aside.   
  
Her brother needed her, and that was enough. She hefted herself up, scrambling out into the night air.   
  
A ring of fire surrounded the car, crackling angrily along with that strange ear-splitting rattling, but she ignored it and her fears and the pain, dropping to the ground clumsily. Minako gritted her teeth and stood on her shaky legs. Someone, she needed to find someone.   
  
There were two figures on the bridge that wasn’t there before: a tall, looming shadow and a girl with blond hair. The moment her eyes fell on them, she felt dread. They were dangerous, very dangerous, and right now she needed to run and find–  
  
“Aah!” Minako clutched her head as a sudden spike of pain lanced through it, like someone was taking an ice pick and trying to drill through her skull and into her brain. It was relentless, and her knees buckled as she screamed. Stop it, don’t come in, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt –  
  
The last thing she knew before the blackness came was that she had the side of her face pressed against the pavement, the girl in white nothing but a blurry smudge in the distance. The shadow was nowhere in sight.   
  


 

 

  
When she first opened her eyes, she had to shut them almost immediately against the glare of the fluoresce lights in the white ceiling. After several blinks, she managed to adjust to the light, but there was nothing to look at; the room was empty apart from the machines on either side, but she didn’t know how to read their screens or even what they were. The smell of disinfectant and medicine lingered in the air. This was a hospital, then.  
  
She couldn’t tell if her brother was asleep. She couldn’t shake herself free from the strange haze in her mind. She couldn’t tell if her head was too full or empty.  
  
So she laid there for several hours in silence, staring at nothing in particular until the nurse came into the room, clipboard in hand. Before the woman could even notice she was awake, Minako asked, “Where is my brother?”

 

 

  
  
Minako was released after a few days with nothing but a few bruises, a few healing scars, and a few bewildered murmurs from the doctor. He couldn’t figure out why her head had hurt – the MRI scans showed no injuries to her brain whatsoever – and he had no explanation for her losing consciousness.   
  
In between the hectic move and the funerals, though, there was no time to worry about it. There were papers and forms to be filled as her aunt became her legal guardian, as her parents’ wills were read and she inherit everything they owned, as she switched schools and houses and friends.   
  
Through the grief, Minako did her best to smile, and slowly became a mirror. She had always been good at reading people; now she listened and watched and learned what they wanted to hear. She would be whatever the person wanted to see in her, childish or mature, teasing or understanding, flirty or friendly. She became a pool of still water, one that was clear but had no visible bottom.   
  
After all, Minato was her opposite. Without him, it was hard to remember how she used to be.   
  


 

 

  
  
It wasn’t until Minako was sent to Gekkoukan that the slight pressure – not an ache, but a sensation – in the back of her mind resurfaced. On her first day back in the city, a few steps off the train, she was greeted with the complete failure of all electrical devices. The waxing moon was sickly yellow, the cloudy sky was tinted green, and the lacquered coffins were black.   
  
But Minako doesn’t remember it from before, like how she couldn’t recall the looming shadow or the girl in white, like how she couldn’t recall the memories of the accident, like how she couldn’t recall her parents’ faces.   
  
All she remembers was that the sensation of drowsiness in the back of her head wasn’t her brother.  
  


 

 

  
  
Norn, the Norse Goddess of Fate. Minako had just fused the goddess today, and tonight she sat on her bed, waiting for the clock on her nightstand to reach twelve. The tick-tock of it seemed inexplicably loud in the quiet night, and it only seemed to get louder as the minute hand neared the top.   
  
She knew exactly when the Dark Hour began; the voices of her Personas sounded a little louder in her head, more tangible than they were during the day. When she called for Norn, the goddess materialized immediately, completely unsurprised that there were no Shadows to fight.   
  
“Why did my brother have to die?”   
  
“Because,” the goddess’ gaze seemed kind, her voice serene, “one of you must live.”


End file.
